


Nostalgia

by kakumei



Series: Things I Wouldn't Do (But Did) [3]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: Character Death, Domestic Fluff, Family, Flashback, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:35:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3137906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kakumei/pseuds/kakumei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: While staying at the Mendoza household, Angelo learns a bit too much about Carlos’ interests from the latter’s younger sister. But happy memories tend to become sombre ones sometimes, as years and loved ones pass. Takes place during the early bits of SR2, and also somewhere near the end of SRTT. (Features some minor Pierce/M!Boss at the end.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nostalgia

**Author's Note:**

> Finally got around to writing that Carlos and Boss Anjo blurb that’s been floating in my head for weeks. Thanks a ton to hunnybadgerv for the betawork she did for me this morning <3

“Hey Carlos, did you get the message too?” Angelo rubbed his eyes as he climbed down the stairs. Normally he wouldn’t have raised his voice while talking about Saints business in the Mendoza household, but the blender was roaring loudly in the kitchen. “Jeez, fuckin’ Johnny needs to learn when it’s OK to contact people—”

He stopped dead in his tracks, underneath the open archway separating the kitchen and the hallway. Carlos’ seventeen-year-old sister looked back at him over her shoulder, clad in her navy blue soccer uniform and her dark curly hair tied back in a ponytail. Familiar almond-shaped eyes, coloured with the same shade of brown as her brother’s, greeted him as she uncapped a blender full of strawberry smoothie.

“Carlos is still sleeping,” said Sophia. She wore the same lopsided grin as her brother, the infuriating sort that always came about when a Mendoza felt smug.

“Yeah, I figured,” said Angelo, biting the inside of his cheek and tugging the collar of his basketball jersey. “Morning, cuz.”

“Morning.” Sophia stood up on her toes, which pulled her up two inches—enough to reach the cupboard handle above her. “You know, we all know about the Saints.”

“Do you?” asked Angelo, frowning as he crossed his arms.

His cousin rolled her eyes at him. “Mom and Dad already dealt with one of my brothers wearing purple,” said Sophia. She referred to her eldest brother, Adrian, who had died in jail several months before Angelo had woken from his coma. “They know the signs, though you’re pretty much numero uno on their list of things to watch out for.”

“You seem too relaxed about your brother and I getting into this, uh…” Angelo pursed his lips, lowering his chin as he searched for the right word. “Business.”

Sophia pulled out a tall glass, which clunked when she set it over the tile counters. One hand steadied the bottom of the blender as the girl served some of the smoothie for herself. “Whatever. Gang stuff’s always been a thing in Stilwater. Want some?”

Angelo waved his hand when Sophia gestured the blender at him. It didn’t seem fair to him that Sophia had to grow up in a place where gang violence was part of everyday life. Then again, he wasn’t someone who could lecture on ethics and civil disobedience. He exacerbated the problem.

“What was the message about?” asked Sophia, before taking a sip from her glass.

“I ain’t telling you.” Angelo flicked his thumb over his nose and crossed his arms, lowering his voice deep enough to make his concern and warning clear. “You’re having no part of this.”

The girl just shrugged back at him. “Didn’t have to get so serious. Usually when Carlos talks about Saints stuff he gets, like, super dorky. Even before he went to jail, all he could talk about was the Saints.” Her grin returned with a vengeance, only twice as wide. “You should’ve seen him when he started obsessing over luchadores when we were kids.”

“Ay, Sophia!” Carlos had entered the kitchen. He scratched his head, his thin white shirt and black pajama pants dishevelled as if he’d just stumbled out of bed. “Don’t get into this shit, man.”

“Nah, man, I wanna hear this,” said Angelo. The change in topic presented, for him, a welcome distraction. “What were you saying about luchadores?”

Carlos groaned. “Come on, Anjo—”

“When we were kids,” Sophia interrupted, flipping back her ponytail. Her brother placed his hands on his hips and sneered. “Dad used to tune into Telemundo and catch the lucha libre fights every Saturday. Adrian and Carlos were super into it, and they—”

“Don’t!”

“—would grab the linens and drape it—”

Carlos had swept around Angelo and behind his sister, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and clamping it over her mouth. But Sophia hadn’t quieted down. Her laughter and muffled words tried to break through Carlos’ fingers.

While the two siblings wrestled playfully with each other, Angelo swooped beside them and caught the smoothie glass before it became a mess of shards and pureed fruit over the linoleum floor.

“Why are you so annoying?” Carlos asked, hissing when Sophia’s nails dragged over his wrist. He let her go, rubbing his scratched arm as he leaned over the counter

“Hey, Anjo asked!” replied Sophia.

“Kids like wrestling,” said Angelo, shaking his head as he handed Sophia her smoothie. “No surprise there.”

“It’s more than just wrestling,” said Carlos, the last word rolling off his tongue like he’d been forced to lick someone’s foot. “There’s way more finesse to it. Discipline. It’s like an art form. Hermano, if you had seen Angel de la Muerte back in the day—”

“Oh my God,” Sophia tossed her head back as she laughed. “Anjo—this Angel guy punches beehives. He’s totally crazy.”

“Cierra la boca![i]” Carlos threw his hands up. “That’s just shit Killbane said to make Angel look bad!”

“God, you’re such a fanboy! Seriously Anjo, you should see the posters in Carlos’ room. Spandex and masks everywhere.”

“Sophia!”

Angelo braced his sides, almost hitting the back of his head on the freezer handle behind him as he choked back laughter. “Goddamn, ‘Los.”

The elder Mendoza was looming over his sister, his eyes wide with panic. “I swear, if you say another word—”

“Carlos even had a mask design in his notebook, and a name for if he ever got to team up with Angel.” Sophia backed towards the second kitchen door; it connected to the living room, which was ample enough escape from a furious older brother.

“The Butcher of Stilwater!” screeched Sophia in her best sing-song, mocking voice. Carlos, already following her first running steps away from the kitchen, yelled in Spanish as he chased her around the house.

———

Heavy metal music and the grandiose commentary of Murderbrawl’s announcers thundered through the stillness of the locker room. Anjo shuffled his feet, feeling far more naked than one usually would wearing skin-tight spandex leggings. Grunts and heavy smacks indicating a punching bag getting massacred resonated from the other side of the locker room where Angel prepared for the match. How much this night meant to this luchadore showed in all his preparation; this fighter, a man who put himself through hell in a blaze suit and suffered through tiger escapades in an Eiswolf for just one chance at vindication. What a sight, Angelo thought. It wasn’t a glamorous one, or even an image of finesse or artistry, but it sure as hell would’ve meant a shit ton to Carlos knowing his old hero got back on his feet.

Pierce entered the locker room and whistled when he saw Angelo on the bench, clad only in black spandex and the dark inked designs sprawling over the Boss’ bare shoulders. “Damn Anjo, that look suits you,” he said, taking his sweet time to study Angelo’s appearance.

Angelo could only give him a half-hearted grin. “You designed it, Pierce. ‘Course it does.”

“Fuck yeah, that’s my work.” He slapped Angelo’s hand when he stretched it out, then pulled him into a tight but brief hug. “Though, the show’s producers just called me. They said you still need a stage name before you go out there and lay out that fucker Killbane.”

Picking up the deep purple Luchadore mask lying beside him on the bench, Angelo ran his thumb over the black-stitched, cream colored angel wings that rimmed the eyes. “Don’t worry. I know the perfect one to use.”

[i] - ‘Shut your mouth!’


End file.
